


Hands

by taleanaomi



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Medical, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29192694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taleanaomi/pseuds/taleanaomi
Summary: Christine Chapel's musings on the hands of the Enterprise crew. Drabble.
Kudos: 1





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a comment by tostrekkiegirl on Tumblr about McCoy's hands. POV of Medical Officer Christine Chapel because I refuse to believe she was “just a nurse.”

I've held a lot of hands during my tenor as medical officer on the USS Enterprise. It comes with the job. People are still people, and accidents still happened. Even on the Federation’s flagship.

Chief Engineer Scott’s have always been the worst. Calloused with cuts, scotches, burns, and the occasional unidentifiable fluid even though liquid based mechanics aren’t really a thing anymore. I once asked him how’d it happen. He just grinned and shrugged. “The Enterprise, she’s got a mind of her own lass. I’m nay her master anymore then the captain.”

Last week, it was Sulu’s thumb containing a thorn from some non-Earth roses he was attempting to cross pollinate. He normally wouldn’t have come in, but this one had slide a little too far under the skin for the basic first aid kit in the botany lab.

Captain Kirk’s were calloused from all the action he put himself through. Calloused and reassuring as he held my hand as I cleaned his wounds up from another escapade. I was shaking worse then the Enterprise was that day as either the Klingons or Romulans fired on the Enterprise. 

“It’s going to be alright, Christine.” He told me. He raised his eyes towards the regenerator I was using on his forehead. “Don’t miss with that thing or there won’t be a captain left to get up to the bridge.” 

I blushed, more with anger than anything. I released my hand from his, grabbed his jaw and went to work. I would shake later that day in my quarters, still not completely used to being on the front lines of the final frontier.

I never held Lt. Spock’s. As must as I wanted to. In addition to Vulcan’s being avoidant of touch, he never seemed to injure his hands in anyway. Were his hands cold, or warm? Calloused or not? He was a science officer, so probably not. Could Vulcan’s even get calluses? The closets I’d come was when our little fingers had brushed against one another’s when reaching for the same medical tricorder by accident.

He didn’t even notice. I snatched my hand back like it had been burned, frightened lest he realize how I felt.

But Dr. Mcoy’s hands were the first to surprise me. 

“I’ll probably catch some age old virus and succumb slowly to gangrene.” He grumped as I looked over his hands one day after he’d been called down to Engineering and ended up cutting himself on some metal exposed by Lt. Scott working on engine room repairs. 

“Hmm.” I snorted softly. I turned off the dermal regenerator and rubbed the spot gently. 

I don’t know why I assumed they’d be rough and calloused. Maybe it was his age, maybe it was the way he used them for so many different things, to heal, to comfort, to restrain, to convince, and yes even to kill if the situation warranted it. 

His hands were soft, softer then mine if I’m being honest. But it made sense, he is a surgeon and surgeons have to take care of their best assets. Hands. 

“It looks alright to me, Doctor.” I smiled, meeting his blue eyes with my dark ones. 

He grunted. “Of course. Thanks, Nurse Chapel.”

I smiled and let his hand go. I wondered what hands would enter sickbay tomorrow. I studied my own hands and wondered what stories they would tell to those whom held them.


End file.
